Great derby today in England's T20 Championship, among the traditional enemies of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The famous battle of roses (or the war of roses) as Lancashire's mark is a red rose, while the Yorkshire mark is a white rose.

The fight is at Old Trafford and usually in the derby, the seat plays a key role. But for me, it is the big absences of the Yorkshire team, since Root, Balance and Williamson are missing with their national teams and so the guests lose a lot of their strength.

On the other hand, Lancashire returns Butler from England and finally their batting gets deep and they are expected to show more aggressive power and score higher than they used to date. Of course, their low scoring did not disturb them so far as they managed to defend and score like 133 and 126 and somehow so they are at the top of the score with 4 wins at 5 races.

From Lancashire Flintoff will not be back again, but Butler's return seems more important. I think that in this game the hosts have the lead, their performance should be a bit lower. Red roses seem to have everything they need to win the war of roses.

The big derby for the 2 group of the Yorkshire Bank 40 cricket championship and under the circumstances only derby is not. 

Here Lancashire is burning to win, as it is 3 points behind Hampshire and only with victory can hope for winning the first place in the last game and qualifying in the semifinals. Lucky for Lancashire is that he finds Hampshire in a very poor condition as they come from failing to conquer England's T20 Championship just last Saturday. This failure hurt the Hampshire team very much, since all of them have been the big favorite.

As long as the psychological and agonizing discomfort did not come from the Saturday match, Hampshire is asked to play without 4 key players. The main absence is the Pakistani star, Sohoil Tavir, whose contract expired. Also, 3 will be missing out on major English internationals, Carverly, Biggs and Vins, with Hampshire weakening both in bowling and batting. Carbery has been in a terrible situation lately, and has a good tradition against Lancashire, having scored 100 and 150 in recent matches.

The Lancashire will also be a loss after Carrigan was called, but in the face of Hampshire's absences, that's nothing. 

I think Lancashire has a strong lead in this show and the performance is just above the value limit.